Sunday Museum of the American Indian

I am going to try and avoid the subway. Every station I have been to ( about 5) is dark and gloomy. On one a few days ago I had to stand near a lighted advertisement to read by. I went this morning by bus and foot to The Museum of the American Indian. On the way I passed ,by accident, the Japanese American World War 2 memorial. It was a nice pond with rocks and nearby on a pedestal a crane with wings out, but caught in barbed wire.

On the way to the museum I took some photos of statues of more famous people – I am getting a bit tired of this, there are lots around Washington. I could hear some music coming from the building I was going to. It was drums and a pan flute or 4 . I recognised the sounds but could not place them. When I got there I was reminded that the museum covers north and south America. It was a special day for Bolivia and all though the day there were various different Bolivian groups performing. At least I think they were all Bolivian, but maybe not. John and I were in Bolivia in 1976 , a very long time ago. This museum is the newest of the Smithsonian museums. They have 3 main galleries and 1 with a changing exhibition. Each gallery has a theme and within the gallery, about 10 different tribes have been featured. There are lots of curved walls to delineate the spaces. It is a bit odd at first, but you get used to it and I think it works. The theme of the first gallery is ‘Our universes’ . This mainly dealt with creation stories and how respect was shown to the relevant beings or spirits. In another gallery the theme was ‘our peoples’ . One of the tribes I focussed on was the Hupa people, based around the Trinity river of N California. A very important aspect of their culture is 3 different dances that certain important people in the tribe perform in a particular sacred house which has been in continual use for 10,000 years. The river is central to one ceremony which involves the use of canoes, however its water flow is now controlled upstream and has been reduced in their lands so that now they have to request in writing to the Bureau of Reclamation to have the water flow increased so that the canoes do not bottom out during the ceremony. The basket-makers also have problems with the widespread use of pesticides affecting the reeds that they make into baskets. Only certain of the wise, spiritual elder women make the baskets because they pray for the people that are going to use the baskets as they make them. Like prayer shawls and the communities or individuals that make them.

In the written descriptions, the word hemisphere was used to mean North and south America. I have just looked it up because I did not know, or had forgotten, that there is a Western Hemisphere that is west of the Grenwich meridian and East of the date line but has come to mean just the Americas. Apparently 9/10 of native people in the Americas died in the first century of contact between the hemispheres. In some of the displays there was mention of their lands being taken, children taken from them , people being relocated. The third gallery was called ‘our live’. Again it featured about 8 different cultures. There were stories , e.g. about urban natives and the difficulty they had being in 2 cultures. Some communities now have complete immersion schools to grade 4 so that the kids learn the language. People are teaching the kids old techniques – like the Wampanoag woman I met teaching kids how to cook traditional food.

This museum has a great cafeteria. There are about 5 separate ‘stations’ where you get a choice of different sorts of food. There was a south American food – empanadas etc, there was a Mexican – tacos etc,, Northern woodlands, NW coast, and great plains. I had a piece of salmon with a blueberry sauce, a salad of beets and apple and walnut and a salad of what they called sunchoke - Jerusalem artichoke to me – and sweet potato. It was all delicious.

Most of the Smithsonian museums and some others are either side of a grassy strip of land called The Mall stretching west from the Capitol to the Potomac River. When I was in New York, and then again in Boston, I saw in the main Art Gallery shop a token for 2 of the 6 adults in my family who I try and buy a token for when I travel overseas. Each time I thought to myself ‘buy it in Washington’. Bad move. After going to the Indian museum I criss crossed back and forward going to various of the museums but could not find this thing. One more place to try in the next few days. I popped into the Air and Space Museum. There were lots of aeroplanes hanging up but not what I wanted in the shop.

I thought I would go to Eastern Market, a place a bit SE of the main area which has on the weekend markets. I had left the bus route map behind and the circulator ( the second bus company) did not come near me so I had to take the subway. Bad move, I should have walked. I had to wait about 25 minutes in a very gloomy place. In all of the subway stations in New York I felt better than any of the ones I have been to in Washington. At the Eastern Markets stop , for some reason, I did not get out my map and orient myself before I set off following a lot of the people who got off. I was walking down a street full of restaurants, full of people eating main meals at 3.30 in the afternoon, before I stopped and realised I was walking the wrong way. Never mind I found a bakery that was not packed and had a drink and walked back. Skip the markets. Then I waited 25 minutes for the circulator ( they are supposed to come every 10 minutes) and gave up and got on another bus that would get me nearer home than standing at that stop. I walked home through a different part of the city – mainly clothes shops – that I had not seen.

I have seen groups of tourists , with a guide on bicycles, on segways, and today I saw a group of 5 joggers with a guide. Washington lends itself to that – you could stop at all the statues. I also saw a policeman, not a security guard, on a segway today, but he could have been attached to a museum.

None of the clothes shops anywhere I have been have prices in the windows. Last year in Italy we played a game called ’ spot the most expensive item’ in many of the very very expensive shops. Not here. Anyway, today was hot and Sunday and many people were out and about so many ice cream trucks were out and about. They all had signs of what was available but none had the price. How do kids learn what to spend their pocket money on?